College of Education and Health Professions Celebrates Upward Trajectory in U.S. News Rankings

The College of Education and Health Professions at the University of Arkansas continued its climb in the U.S. News and World Report rankings of graduate schools of education, leaping 14 places in the magazine's 2012 edition of rankings released in March.

"We are extremely pleased with the rapid movement of our education programs in the rankings," said Tom Smith, dean of the college. "Rankings are one of many factors that prospective students, as well as prospective faculty and staff members, may take into account when evaluating our programs, and our higher ranking reflects improvements we have made in the college."

The college has benefited from major gifts to the university, he said.

"We have been able to recruit top-quality doctoral students with the funds provided by generous donors as well as to establish the department of education reform with six endowed chairs," Smith said. "I would like to thank our faculty and staff, who are committed to providing the highest quality experience for our students. We will continue to provide the state of Arkansas and beyond with skilled, caring and knowledgeable practitioners in the health and education fields.

"I also want to recognize the schools, health-care facilities and human service agencies that work with us to provide invaluable experience for our students," he continued. "We would not be where we are without their partnership."

The education graduate programs are ranked 127 on the U.S. News list, an improvement of 14 places over the previous year, which was the first time the college was ranked. One of the college's graduate programs, rehabilitation counseling, was ranked No. 16 and has been in the top 20 for the past decade.

"Our rehabilitation counseling program has an excellent reputation for preparing professionals for a field that is seeing significant shortages compared to the demand created as baby boomers age," Smith said. "The program will continue to uphold this standard of excellence in teaching as well as in research. We have added a new assistant professor, Chen-Ping Lin, and we expect her to make significant contributions in these areas. We expect to maintain our top-20 ranking for many years to come."

Lin completed a post-doctoral fellowship in the department of rehabilitation medicine at the University of Washington before joining the faculty of the University of Arkansas last fall. She earned her doctorate in rehabilitation psychology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, which is ranked No. 1 in rehabilitation counseling by U.S. News and World Report. She researches psychosocial adaptation to disability and aging.

Lynn C. Koch, another professor in the program, also earned her doctorate in rehabilitation psychology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Other faculty members are Brent T. Williams, associate professor and program coordinator who earned his doctorate in rehabilitation from the University of Illinois at Urbana, which is ranked No. 17 by U.S. News, and Douglas Watson, professor based at the college's Rehabilitation Research and Training Center for Persons Who Are Deaf or Hard of Hearing in Little Rock.

The program received two major grants last year, one for $750,000 to provide funding to 35 University of Arkansas students preparing to work as rehabilitation counselors with people who have disabilities and the other for $500,000 to prepare 25 students to work as psychiatric vocational rehabilitation specialists.

The program recently marked the retirement of Richard T. Roessler, who was awarded the National Distinguished Service Award from the National Rehabilitation Counseling Association last fall. Roessler's 39-year career at the University of Arkansas included several other national awards, and he co-authored two textbooks widely used in graduate education.

The nursing and speech-language pathology programs in the college are also ranked by U.S. News and World Report. Both programs will be moving into a new facility. The nursing and communication disorders faculty are scheduled to move into the Center for Health Professions on the northwest corner of campus in December and be ready for spring 2012 classes.